Military-led Strategic Advisory Team in Kabul to end

Further to Babbling's post, the decision is now official. Pity:

KABUL -- The Department of National Defence says it is disbanding the Canadian Forces Strategic Advisory Team in Afghanistan and moving toward a civilian-led governance support office.

The team comprised of military officers and foreign affairs officials is responsible for advising the Afghan government in Kabul.

Ottawa says the team has completed its mandate and will shut down at the end of the current troop rotation later this month.

Since 2005, the team has provided strategic advice and support to the Afghan government on things like gender equity policy, public administration reform, education, justice and development.

Ottawa says the Governance Support Office, a new Kabul-based organization led by the Canadian International Development Agency, will take over the role of advising the Afghan government.

Canada is expected to now focus on the technical and project implementation phase of Afghanistan's development strategy.

Ottawa says the change reflects Canada's plan to focus more on development and diplomacy in the lead up to 2011 when the military mission in Kandahar is slated to end.

Via a comment by milnews.ca here.

More:

'Jealousies' blamed for Afghan team's dissolution

Christie Blatchford in January:

'Bureaucratic jealousy' threatens military team

What about the war, Team Canada, Whole of Government Approach, whatever?

Update: But getting Canadian public servants to Afstan, especially Kandahar, presents challenges:

The latest Canadian casualty in Afghanistan isn't a soldier and wasn't wounded in an enemy attack.

She is Canada's most senior civil servant in Kandahar, who took a tumble while visiting a Canadian forward operating base and badly broke her ankle.

Now, Elissa Golberg, 35, hobbles her way on crutches into armoured vehicles and across military compounds, determined to complete her 11-month-long tour that's just about halfway done.

Her dogged persistence has become almost symbolic of Canada's little-known bureaucratic mission in Kandahar that is, according to Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson, "struggling" to attract civil servants to one of the most dangerous postings in the world.

"Where are we weak?" asked Emerson rhetorically on his whirlwind visit to Afghanistan in July. "I think one of the issues that we are struggling with, and I'm sure we'll overcome it, is ensuring that we can attract and excite enough Canadian public servants to come over here."

In one of the monumental aspects of the Canadian mission, civil servants are trying to build an Afghan bureaucracy -- everything from the basics of a justice system to a municipal government to a functioning police force -- as part of Canada's "exit strategy" to allow Afghans to run their own affairs.

While Emerson used his trip to announce an additional 200 troops for the military mission, the bureaucratic mission is quietly preparing for a surge of its own -- doubling the number of Canadian civil servants in Kandahar City from 30 to 60 by Christmas.

Golberg says there are enough volunteers to fill this year's spots but the challenge is finding enough in the future willing to take on a 12-month deployment to a war zone that has not only claimed the lives of 88 Canadians soldiers, but also one Canadian civil servant: diplomat Glyn Berry, who was killed by a suicide bomber in 2006.

As if the posting isn't tough enough, the preparation itself is an ordeal...